A brighter Sunday and a look at the midweek Nor'easter potential

This time of the year is kind of a weird no mans land between the beautiful colors of Fall and the beginning of a long winter. (Although I did see Christmas stuff up in Target the other day. Don't get me wrong, I'm hap, hap, happier than Bing Crosy tap dancing with Danny ( ) Kay around the holidays, but it's two months away!) Today it felt more like Fall, by Sunday night it will feel more like winter. It's the ying and the yang of November in Maine.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy and generally quiet. There will be a few snow showers across the higher terrain as the last of Sandy's moisture banks up against the mountains. Overnight lows will fall between 31 and 38 in most spots.

Sunday: A fairly even mixture of sun and clouds through the morning, but eventually becoming mostly sunny by the afternoon. The remnants of Sandy will FINALLY get picked up by the jetstream by noon, so as she moves away, the sunshine will increase. High temperatures will be a bit cooler than Saturday, 46-51 F.

With that upper level low (formerly Sandy) out of the way some VERY cold air will pull down from Canada. I expect overnight lows to drop into the 20s all the way to the coastline by Sunday night under mostly clear skies.

Monday and Tuesday will be similarly cool with highs only reaching between 40 and 45 and overnight lows dropping into the 20s and teens. Viewed as a whole, this will be the coolest air of the season so far. The upside: Both days will be mostly sunny and dry.

Ok now on to the Nor'easter threat for Wednesday night/Thursday. There is quite a bit of buzz surrounding this storm already due to it's timing in relation to Sandy. I get that. But let's just talk about THIS storm for what IT is.

1) I don't see a widespread snow event. You need the perfect setup to get snow all the way to coastline this early in the season. We had it last year for "Snowtober" but we don't appear to have it with this developing Nor'easter. The storm is too far west, it brings too much warm air with it, and the cold air supplied by the ridge of high pressure to our north is not frigid enough. Oh, and by the way, good luck getting snow to the coastline with a screaming east wind off the 54 F water. "I'll take 'Not gonna happen' for 500 Alex"

2) That being said, the mountains will probably get a few inches out of this at least. There is a process known as "evaporative cooling" in which an airmass cools down in the process of evaporating precipitation. (The basic idea is that it takes energy to evaporate a liquid, so that energy is removed from the idea, making it colder). This process will be hard at work at the beginning of this storm, so that should tip the scales in the mountains towards snow until the warmer mid level air arrives and changes even those areas over to rain.

3) The real concern with this storm is the wind. Once again we are looking at a very strong pressure gradient between a deep low pressure system and a high to the north. Although this gradient is nothing like what we saw during Sandy, it should be good enough for wind gusts along the coastline to reach the 50 + MPH range. That's the LAST thing most of the eastern seaboard needs...another coastal battering. Truth is though, this is the part of the storm I feel is most likely to play out as depicted on the computer models.

Of course we are still 4 days out so things could change. But I figured I'd take an early shot at it...they don't call me "Wildman Carson" for nothing.

I'm Growing a Moustache: It's part of a movement called "Movember" that drives donation for cancer research and awareness. I'd really appreciate your support, even if you can only give a few dollars that would really help. You can see my day by day picture progress and find the link to donate on our website: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=220510